Bucky Bleichert
Referenced in * The Black Dahlia * Perfidia Jobs * Boxer * Warrants Officer History Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert was raised by his dad after his mom was driven insane by him and jumped off a roof. He began his amateur boxing career 19 but due to certain circumstances was forced to quit. Upon the start of WWII, he sought to join the police force but wasn't allowed due to the fact that his dad was a member of the Bund. To allow his entry however the Alien Squad leaned on him to snitch on Hideo Ashida and other Japanese-American friends who were in turn sent to Manzanar. His boxing career was 36-0-0. Meeting Blanchard Kay Lake Bucky met Kay Lake on Blanchard's introduction. She's a South Dakotan transplant who immediately catches takes a liking to Bucky. She is shacking up with Lee Blanchard who he connected with after saving her from Bobby DeWitt who was involved in the Citizens Bank robbery in 1939. She was sexually involved with Lee until he started losing boxing matches, their involvement being something of an eleventh round, When he began losing it became too much of a reminder of his long lost glory days. As time goes by and Lee and Bucky become partners the three of them become close, Bucky socializing with them on a regular basis. As time goes by Kay professes her love for Bucky. Norton & 39th On January 15, 1947 Bucky and Lee came upon the brutal murder of Elizabeth Short while working a nearby case, looking to arrest a warrantee Junior Nash. The case quickly becomes an obsession of Lee Blanchard and the case that consumes the LAPD, much to Bucky's chagrin. The questioning with Lee first began at the house of Cleo Short, Betty's father. Although he was a crude figure he did provide some help insomuch as telling them that Betty was more interested in chasing men, preferably soldiers, than honoring their arrangement that she would have a free room in exchange for to keep house. As time progressed the investigation takes Bucky to question the roommates or owners of Betty Short's various addresses. It began at 6024 Carlos Ave, Hollywood where Bucky questions boarding house owner Loretta Janeway who told him Betty stayed for but a from 9/14/46-10/19/46. The questioning besides contributing to timeline reveals the fact that she didn't socialize with the other women and adds more confirmation that she had a number of "boyfriends." The next stop takes him to 1842 N. Cherokee, Hollywood Sheryl Saddon, an extra on a movie tells him Betty went after older men and didn't work except to get money from men and she'd disappear for days at a time. Saddon confirms Ms. Janeway's story that Betty was a habitual liar and during Thanksgiving was flush with cash and showing a viewfinder to all present and saying she had been in a movie. At the final residence that Bucky, with Bill Koenig in tow goes to 13-A-1611 Bucky speaks with Marjorie Graham who tells him about Betty and Linda Martin meeting with a lesbian. When he goes to follow his lead he comes upon Madeleine Cathcart Sprague who too long after being questioned agrees to sleep with him in exchange for keeping her name out of the papers and suppressing evidence due to her being from a prominent family. Upon their first date he's invited to have dinner with said family and her father Emmett Sprague tells of his history. Not long after at the Red Arrow Motel, where Bucky and Madeleine have their trysts, she tells him the more sordid side of how her father made his money. Upon catching and questioning Linda Martin with Russ Millard they discover the stag film with her and Betty Short. When Lee sees it and rushes off to La Verne's Hideaway Bucky rushes after him and tackles him outside after his erratic behavior. The succeeding days were anything if not chaotic. On top of a little black book arriving that had torn out pages and what pictures were in it were crossed out Bucky heard Lee would be suspended for lying about Junior Nash's by Chief Green Bucky discovered Lee was in Tijuana. When he finds out Bobby De Witt had also gone to TJ he goes and finds Vogel, Loew, and Koenig as well hoping to do a frame job. After a struggle Vogel agrees to help Bucky find De Witt and/or Lee. After finding Bobby and question him hard Bucky is forced to leave after he got too rough with De Witt. When Bucky and Russ go to New Jersey to question Joseph Dulange, who's suspected of killing the Dahlia, they discover he had sex with Betty but when she thought she was pregnant he took her to a bug doctor to give her a fake exam. Other than that they realize Dulange is nothing but a fake and as it turns out has an alibi for the murder, that being he was in the jail ward of St. Patrick's Hospital in Brooklyn from 1/14-17. After coming back he and Fritz are tasked with interrogating four prisoners who'd been at a ding farm. When they're taken to an abandoned warehouse and Fritz goes overboard with of the prisoners, a pimp who has a habit of confessing to murdered prostitutes named Charles Michael Issler, Bucky pushes the alarm and head to Kay's house where they become a couple. The action also results in his being demoted to a patrolman wherein he's harassed for not using harsh tactics. Returning to his investigation of the Dahlia case from Lee's files he comes upon one of his old reports, one in which he said Marjorie Graham told him Elizabeth Short would use various nicknames based on her company. Remembering Issler refer to her as Liz he calls Russ with the fact that he's got a hunch. Following that hunch he breaks into the apartment of Johnny Vogel where he finds whips and other pornographic materials. Then breaking into Fritz's house, while he doesn't find any information as to the Dahlia's murder, he does find numerous files that confirm his involvement in extortion. Telling Russ of his activities they go to question Sally Stinson, the prostitute Johnny saw and she confirms she had in fact seen him at the Biltmore. and they had encountered the Dahlia, going by Liz, who had sex with him. Sally also tells them that Fritz had come to see her and not only threatened her but beat her up. When Johnny confirms all the information laid when interrogated by Russ and Bucky he is then arrested and not long after Fritz kills himself. After this series of events Bucky goes to Ensenada to look for Lee. Having gone in January it is revealed, when Bucky investigates that Lee had been down there for about a month, throwing around money and getting in fights. When Bucky comes upon a P.I., Milton Dolphine, in his room it's revealed that a Mexican woman had come to him and asked him to find Lee. It is thought that she was connected to Felix Chasco who got killed with Bobby De Witt by Rurales presumably on Lee's orders. As Bucky continues to investigate Dolphine reveals to Bucky that Lee was killed and buried on a beach. When Bucky returns to L.A. Kay reveals she suspected he'd be killed due to his connection with De Witt. She tells him that the Boulevard-Citizens bank robbery was a frame job. That she in fact had met Lee prior to the trial unlike previously reported. Despite initially not telling him where she was living when he found out he sought to frame De Witt and got three other people, all of them getting killed save Baxter Fitch who had been killed by Lee later. Soon thereafter he and Kay marry and have some time of normalcy until Betty Short invades his mind once more and he imagines having sex with her. When Thad Green keeps him on as a forensic tech as his onlt alternative after the mess with Vogels Bucky takes it. finds a wad of cash under a floor board when doing repairs and comes away wondering why he was begging Ben Siegel to kill Fitch when he had enough to meet the blackmail demands. This, in addition, to the swag Lee was flashing around in Mexico further confuses what all Lee had going on. The case reveals itself all over again when Ray Pinker sends him to deal a suicide, that of Eldridge Chambers, a former business associate of Emmett Sprague who had him kicked off when his buildings proved faulty and collapsed in the earthquake of '33. When he speaks to his widow, Jane Chambers, it is revealed she knew about Ramona's pageants or films and George Tilden's involvement in filming them, ending her daughters' participation when she saw some of the gory pictures taken by Tilden. He also comes upon an eerie clown picture in the house. The Sprague angle peaks Bucky's interest all over again and sends him staking out the Sprague's home, an action that results in him finding out Madeleine is going out picking up men dressed as the Betty Short to pick up men. As time passed being a lab tech he is sent to work Newton Street, which he describes as a war zone. He has an itial cold reception due to his light touch working the streets but soon after becomes heavy handed with the gangs and associated people, mostly black, and when he breaks up a card game and beats up the Johnson brothers he begins to be received well but due to threats on his life by local gangs he's assigned a safer area in the station much to his boredom. When he becomes involved with Madeleine again and has a torrid three week affair with her at her home he's dismayed to discover Kay's moved out and she shows her disgust of him by calling him a necrophile. Going back to The El Nido his obsession takes a more obscene turn when he goes to pick up a prostitute and dresses her up as Betty. When he scares her by his actions that border on crazy and she leaves he looks up to the picture of Betty and promises to find her killer. When he goes to Boston is search of answers while he finds out by some of her employers she was a bad worker when he goes to Medford he is directed by her boss at the Majestic Theater go visit an old friend of hers, one Tommy Gilfoyle. When he speaks to Tommy it is revealed that Betty's promiscuity and obsession with servicemen was a result of her being attacked by two men when she was sixteen or seventeen, one raping her but was saved by two servicemen, a sailor and a Marine. Thinking she was pregnant she went to a doctor only to find out she couldn't in fact get pregnant which saddened her. Coming back he contacts Russ to tell him about the doctor lead from Dulange he wants to revisit and searches both legitimate and illegitimate doctors which leads him to Willis Roach, the "bug" doctor mentioned by Dulange. When Bucky racks his mind once again over the master file he comes upon the Meeks aside, going to see Meeks he finds out Betty Short had gone to see a producer, Burt Lindscott on the eleventh and twelfth, an ultimately insignificant lead even though it helps fill in the timeline. He also discovers Meeks phoned it in to Russ but caught Loew instead who paid him a grand to keep it hush hush. It was at this point that Madeleine calls to tell him that the city is tearing the "L-A-N-D" letters from Mount Lee and that this would affect the Spragues since Emmett and Mack Sennett built homes there. When Bucky goes to visit Dr. Willis Roach, the disgraced doctor Dulange accrues to check Betty out her fake pregnancy tells him not only was he was in San Francisco at a medical conference but also filled in her last days saying she had called a number with a Webster prefix and asked for a "Macy" and headed westbound to a bus stop, clues that could point to the Spragues. When at a Mack Sennett movie commemorating the sign he discovers that the nudie film was not made in Mexico. When he comes back from there Harry calls to tell him, while tearing down the sign they came upon a shack, a shack he soon realizes after looking over its contents and collecting forensic evidence that it was the place Betty Short was killed in. Going to the Sprague's home he discovers that Madeleine is not Emmett's biological father and that unlike what Emmett had previously said Georgie Tilden in saved him because he was a coward. Emmett also reveals that once he recognized that Georgie and Madeleine resembled each other he attacked him beyond recognition and bribed the emergency room doctors to say it was a car accident. Feeling guilty he allowed him to live on his property and do odd jobs. Also Madeleine tells him she came upon Linda Martin and when asked about doing a nudie film she provides one of her dad's old houses to make it, the house whereat Georgie saw Betty and became obsessed. She tells Linda to lie about the location if questioned as well. When Betty eventually showed up on the 12th they sent her off with Georgie, naïvely thinking it'd only be for sex and not sending her to her death. After leaving them he goes to Tilden's shack which proves to be a horror show of bottle organs and death. When he's attacked by him Bucky is forced to kill him in self-defense. Following up something that didn't sit well while questioning Madeleine he goes to question Martha McConville Sprague who tells him she phoned in the tip to Lee about La Verne's Hideaway and that as a result Lee went and beat up Emmett in exchange for $71,000 to keep Madeleine's involvement suppressed. It also comes out Kay came to pick up some of the money. Going to question Kay at the school she confirms that yes she knew that Lee was covering up but wanted to moved on from that part of their lives. Still investigating the Spragues he comes upon Jane Chambers and while entering the house sees the clown picture and finds out she received it on January 15, 1947 as a birthday present from her husband and the clown was the main character in a book found in Tilden's first shack. Also it was sold to him by Ramona Sprague. Going to see Ramona she confesses, saying she and Georgie had a case of unrequited love and that she killed and tortured Betty Short. Seeing as how she was sick he decides to not to do anything. Instead he goes after Madeleine and discovers she is impersonating the Dahlia again and admits to an anonymous lover that she killed Lee. Category:Police officers Category:Characters from The Black Dahlia Category:Characters from Perfidia Category:Boxers Category:Forensic techs